This project is the beginning of a clean build of the NeboLand Exile server with an emphasis on total build automation and best practices.
The ARMA dev community has slowly started using github, but there is still a wide collection of code and practice that is stored in dated blog posts, zip files and snippets... it makes it very difficult to provide a consistent build or even proper updates.
Updaters are varied, however Steam seems to be gaining prominence for many of the open source mods. For other mods, we need a way to systematically pull updates and deploy changes, while keeping changes to the system under source control. Commercial tools (like infiSTAR) should also be excluded from source control.
We also need to distinguish between build artifacts, security credentials and source. The current ad-hoc processes lead many people to avoid sharing any server code for fear of exposing credentials to everyone.
Because of this, it's very difficult to share or even see the arcane art of setting up Arma with various server hosts.
The purpose of this project is to systematize the build process so that a one-step build and deployment is possible. This will make it easier to track changes to subprojects and auto-generate build outputs.
Additionally, I want to separate credentials from the scripts so that the core of this build system can be shared on github and used by other people who want to extend and modify it without going through the considerable learning curve and time investment to setup a proper build chain.
I hope this will expand the reach and fun for Arma servers, it's really an awesome game with a huge amount of potential for the custom mod/dev community.
Please find complete instructions in the BUILD.md file.